The Weekly Sharpener #121

👋 Hey fam!

I'm really excited to share this 👊 Tuesday roundup with you!

We have a fun essay from Adam Gassman about four levers you can pull to increase funnel conversion. What's fantastic for you is how actionable these tips are from Adam.

I often see brands trying to get their ads just right without looking downstream at the things that effect TRUE conversion rate: landing experience + product/offer.

We also look at a few changes you can make when your customers arrive that can make for a clearer and more enticing experience + what type of creative is driving the most conversion today.

Also a mini-framework on how you can create abundance within your creative ideation/creation process.

I hope you're thriving, your ads are scaling, and your LTV is going up and to the right!

Cheers,

Chase

Check out Pencil if you're ready to Create winning ads 10x faster with AI. (🤫 - we just launched amazing new pricing + packages!)

Special Tip:

Most of the time it takes 3-5 views of a brand until a purchase.

That’s why most of your ads should educate people about your product.

Always be selling your USPs to push people further to purchase.

Courtesy of Fraser Cottrell

Partner with us 🤝

Marketing agencies, freelance creatives, e-comm experts…want access to our generous revenue share and co-marketing opportunities? Become a Pencil Partner today! You can learn more here.

Guest Content 🐐

Amazing guest content from Adam Gassman.

Maximize Your ROI: Here are Four Steps To Improve Your E-commerce Conversion Rate.

Identify Your Champion SKUs/Products:

Find the product or products driving the highest add-to-cart-to-purchase conversion rate of all your products.

At Freshly, one of the biggest unlocks for improving new customer conversion rates was finding our champion SKU—the Steak Peppercorn meal.

When a user added a steak peppercorn to their cart, they had a 3x increased likelihood of completing a purchase compared to any other meal.

We pivoted our creative strategy to double down on our champion SKU across ads, landing pages, and on-site.

As a result, the new user conversion rate climbed to the highest we'd seen till that point.

Build Your Product Description Pages As Funnels Within Funnels

The product description pages or cards should serve as a condensed funnel within a funnel and increase buyer momentum.

The product description page should utilize aspirational product photography of the end goal the user is seeking to achieve by purchasing your product.

The path for the consumer to reach their ideal state must seem within reach, and you illustrate that best with social proof.

Leaning into social proof can be done in several ways, but these are the ways I've seen it be most effective:

1) Customer Generated Content

2) Customer Reviews

3) Effective Product Ratings: Ratings are one of the most effective tools for providing customers with social proof as long as you have enough ratings to matter.

However, ratings can be a conversion rate killer if you utilize them before you have enough.

Use Intentional CTAs To Guide Consumers

Here's how to figure out if you're using CTAs effectively. First, ask potential customers to go through your purchase funnel, and at every step of the funnel, before clicking the CTA, document what they think is at the next step. Then, rethink your CTA strategy throughout the funnel using the breakage points you identify.

Use these insights to update your CTAs to guide consumers through the purchase funnel and increase your conversion rate. With limited engineering bandwidth, test CTAs on landing pages first to build the case confidently about the impact of altering CTAs on-site.

Replace Discounts With Loss Leaders

Gone are the days of relying on discounts as the be-all and end-all of e-commerce growth. Instead, identify your loss leaders, products you can lose a little money on margins, but consumers' perception of value far exceeds your loss.

While you lose money on the product purchase, the price point you set for the product more than pays for itself in increased conversion rate and revenue. Pick these SKUs/products based on those driving higher conversion rates than other products and correlated with higher AOVs.

Use these four strategies to boost your funnel conversion rate with minimal engineering bandwidth 📈

If you want to chat with Adam more, you can check out his work at Lane 529.

Thread of the Week 🤌

Why it matters: Many people are afraid of creative, I get it, it's not your area of expertise, and now since you have a brand or the responsibility to deliver the creative for your media buyer (maybe also you) - you are afraid.

What Barry is giving you here is a way to break down those barriers into small blocks to cut through said anxiety.

There are tools you can use to help you with creative, but step one is looking at it like a math equation. It is a set of components:

• That must work together

• Feel like they are from the same "family" of assets

• Have a semblance of a narrative structure

• Drive the customer organically towards engaging with you further down the path towards purchase.

If you can get through that check list - life is good.

If the assets are killers and you've checked each box on this list - 🚀

Expert Strategy + Learnings

Some amazing learnings from thought leaders in DTC.

Carl's CRO Tips 🙌

Idea #1: > Show desired outcome of using the product (cooked pizza), after all you’re selling users on the benefit of owning the oven > Craft a memorable headline including benefits > Add a CTA encouraging users to take action > Lastly, show social proof to boost confidence

For more 🔥 follow Carl Weische from Accelerated.

Rahul's Paid Media Learnings 🤘

One of our top 8 performing creatives:

Product Review/Unboxing

Why I think this works:

• Shows experience of what customers will receive

• Customer reviews speak to pain points and solutions

• Showcase their products in a visually appealing and informative way.

Follow Rahul and reach out to Reach Digital to work with him 🧠

From our Library 📚

Join the ✏️ community

Sign up to learn and meet 200+ other great founders & operators across DTC.

Curious about what we're building? 🧱

Check out our roadmap and upvote what you think is important! If we have missed anything, you can add your suggestions as well.

YouTube Channel 📺

Check out our library of amazing video content on creative, ads, and ecomm operating.

Our Preferred Tech Partners 👏

• Foreplay - spy on your competitors ads + save what you like

• soona - studio level assets in days and without the heavy cost. Yes, please. (Use Pencil39 for a free first photo)

• Motion - you want insights on your ads - make it fast/easy/actionable.

• Otis - ad buying/management automation(there's a present inside waiting for you)

• Triple Whale - attribution - need I say more

• Air - keeping all of your assets organized is a pain. Air makes it delightful.

Fav Newsie's

• Nice Ads 

• Acquire Weekly

• Your Content Should Sell

• The Performers

Enjoy this issue? 🤌

Share The Weekly Sharpener with another marketer on your team.